Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 12: Bali Bhagat, senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Minister has urged the Union Territory administration to settle the issue of Anganwari workers once for all by creating a ‘Corpus Fund’ for timely disbursal of salaries to them.
In a statement issued here, today, Bali Bhagat expressed deep concern for the Anganwari workers who are not receiving timely salaries and have to wait for the same for months together. He said that the families of these workers have to face a lot of woes in absence of payment of salaries for long periods. In such a situation it has become quite difficult for them to fetch even square meals, he said. The senior BJP leader added that a number of these Anganwari workers get compelled to take loans paying heavy interest just to ensure the survival of their families.
Bali Bhagat recalled that a similar problem was faced in case of the employees of Family Welfare Department that was created in 1962 and the affected employees/workers had been on protest for about five decades as their salaries were released by the Centre after long intervals of months together.
He said that during his tenure as Health Minister he had asked the Government to set up Corpus Fund in the name of Family Welfare Department, a wing of Health Department, in the Finance Department. He said that the ‘Corpus Fund’ was accordingly created by J&K’s Finance Department out of which the salaries were disbursed timely to the employees/workers. The amount paid out of the Corpus Fund was deposited back in it after receiving the same from the Centre after many months. He said that this system of payment of salaries ended the issue once for all.
Bali Bhagat urged the Lt Governor Manoj Sinha to initiate similar measure in case of the issue of salary disbursal to the Anganwari workers. He appealed to him to direct the Finance Department to create a Corpus Fund in the name of ICDS Department so that the significant issue of timely disbursal salaries is addressed once for all.
Meanwhile, he also appealed to the LG Sinha to fill all the vacant posts in various government departments of Jammu and Kashmir after advertising the same at the earliest.
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